Qantas boss Alan Joyce has repeatedly asserted that his company's woes stem largely from unfair competition from a range of state-backed airlines not primarily motivated by profit.

Mr Joyce argues these state-owned airlines have the financial backing to add unprofitable routes and seat capacity in an attempt to boost their market share.

The chairman of CAPA Centre for Aviation, Peter Harbison, says Mr Joyce is correct in his claims about government airline ownership.

"Today still most of the carriers that we might fly on travelling from Australia are actually government owned still," he told ABC News Online.

Figures compiled by News Online that look at 25 airlines which either fly into Australia or air significant international carriers, shows most are still either majority or wholly government owned.

Mr Harbison says until the late 1980s virtually all international airlines, except the US carriers, were completely government owned, but the privatisation of British Airways sparked a wave of sell-offs, particularly in Europe.

News Online's figure demonstrate that these privatisations largely bypassed the Asia-Pacific, with 9 out of 14 airlines from the region that were examined found to be majority government-owned.

Indeed, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air, Japan's two main airlines and Qantas are the only Asia-Pacific airlines in the study group that are not majority government-owned.

Government owned, not always subsidised

However, Mr Harbison disputes the second part of Mr Joyce's argument, saying majority government ownership does not necessarily equate to a competitive advantage, citing the three airlines with a stake in Virgin Australia.

"Singapore Airlines doesn't get cheaper debt, Air New Zealand doesn't get cheaper debt, but Etihad is a different case - it's not a listed carrier so it's less visible and much newer but it is, according to its reports, profitable on an operating basis," he said.

Non-listed carriers do not have to meet the same financial reporting standards as firms listed on share markets.

Mr Harbison says the performance of some listed, but majority government-owned, carriers shows that public control does not necessarily negate the profit motive, nor mean an inefficient operation.

"Air New Zealand is extraordinarily commercially competitive, it's managed to shed a lot of its costs, and the government basically stands back from it, it's got a very open skies policy to New Zealand because their main priority is tourism," he said.

However, Mr Harbison adds that profit was not the motive for renationalising Air New Zealand when it was going under.

"The reason Air New Zealand was renationalised when Ansett collapsed was that there weren't sufficient airlines who would be committed to flying to New Zealand to support their tourism industry, that's really the only reason they did it," he explained.

"In Australia's case we're very, very different, because people want to fly here, people want to be in this market, so the real issue from Qantas's point of view is that too many airlines want to fly here."

Peter Harbison says he would not like to see the Federal Government guarantee Qantas's debt, as it could seriously distort the Australian aviation market, but he would like to see Qantas put on a level playing field with its rivals.

"The best thing that the Government can do really is to get out of the way, and that's the real negative that the Qantas Sale Act has against it that it prevents Qantas from the freedom of action that say Virgin Australia has," he concluded.